My life and times in the cultural desert of America! In 1990 I had one of those moments all New Yorkers experience. My commute to work had just taken 4 hours. It was a cold, rainy, generally blah day, and the phone rang! The head hunter on the other end promised the land of milk and honey. Well we all know what P. T. Barnum said.

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Btjunkie

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About Me

Well it just does not pay to complain because frankly, NO ONE CARES! I was raised in New York, and made the biggest mistake of my life in 1990 by moving to Indiana. Well, That's enough about me at this time.

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Saturday, March 28, 2009

America in trouble

What is the future of the United States of America?It is my theory that downstream for this country everyone will be in one of three businesses, agri-business, military business, or a service business.

I am worried that our younger generations with their computers, laptops, notebooks, pdss, ipods, mp3 players, and gaming consoles know how to rip the latest tune or text message their friends at the speed of sound, but cannot read a newspaper, have no concept of current events, and appear to be getting no real education.

We are pouring tons of money into the education system.Most of it never reaches the classroom, and since the creation of the Department of Education was created in Washington to remove local control of schools from parents, regulation not education is the rule.

I am currently mentoring a friend (I love a good buzz word as well as the next guy) as she makes her way through college.The latest trend is “distance learning” not a bad concept in theory. One professor in any location can serve students in any branch of the school or even an individual not connected with the school.The problem with the way it is implemented here is that there is no “face time” with the professor.If the class had a several hour video chat it would be incredible, instead, things get posted that make you wonder where these students were on school days.I’ll give one example and move one.The discussion was about the 80/20 rule and its use in logistics management.On a response to a posting the student said “I didn’t know the government built the highway, that’s not fair to the railroads”.How can a college student not know about the history of the Interstate Highway System and its connection to the Cold War!

All this brings me back to the beginning.The way the country is going now, we will always feed the world.We are good at it. Sometimes unfortunately better then feeding our own.We are also very good at making war.We make good weapons and just like feeding the world we are good at it. Everyone else not in agri-business or the military will be in some service roll to support these industries.Now these are very board categories, when I say agri-business, I talking about everyone from the farmer to the food manufacturer. In the military the range is from the front line to the munitions factory. Anyone not in either of the first two industries will be in the third. Just by its nature this is the broadest group with the most opportunities. These jobs include the entertainment industry, the legal and health industries the hospitality industry, and all of the other service industries required to run a nation.

Unless we do something drastic quickly the students of today will be in no position to compete with the world of tomorrow.

1 comment:

I like what you wrote. I fear for the future of our children with the advancement of computers internet etc. Not sure what can be done. We have a 2 1/2 year old and we are choosing to put her through WALDORF schooling. Hope you get out of Indiana.